Saturday, December 01, 2012

Additional Images

When banjoist Earl Scruggs joined Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Boys in 1945, it forever canonized the tradi¬tional 5-piece bluegrass string band. In the last half-cen¬tury, this combination of instruments has been ex¬plored by musicians throughout the world, in countless combinations, yet “Flatiron” is something original. “Flatiron” is composer Marc Mellits’s view of the string band, recontextualized and reimagined as a rhythmi¬cally interlocking machine, where contemporary classi¬cal post-minimalism meets skillful technique and bluegrass drive. The multi-movement composition is as firmly rooted in the mountains as the New York City skyline, and this ensemble has a long history of forging paths playing adventurous string band music.